The Aid Trap: Hard truths about ending poverty by R Glenn Hubbard and William Duggan

Since the success of the Marshall Plan in reviving the economies of western Europe after the Second World War, it has been assumed that large-scale aid programmes will kickstart economic development in poor countries. For 40 years, aid was an important weapon of the Cold War, where allegiances could be bought and sold on the basis of aid packages. After the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the aid industry changed tack and used morality to market itself. Books like The End of Poverty by Jeffrey Sachs and the bully pulpits of rock stars hammered the message home.